Folding Questions Before I Join

[Dissitesuxba11s]

With the LTT Folding month creeping on us, along with Halloween, I'm interested in joining the team but I do have a few questions.

 

Folders that use their daily drivers for folding, do you only fold when you are not using your PC and turn off the folding software when you are using your PC? If you have it 24/7, is there any significant performance impact when folding and regular day to day media consumption?

 

Is folding comparable to mining when it comes to power consumption, heat production and hardware degradation? I am asking these questions because even though this will be for a good cause, I don't want to suddenly receive a big electricity bill and come home to a furnace.

 

Any input is appreciated.

Edited November 9, 2018 by Dissitesuxba11s
Changed the title because I think people are thinking that this might be the thread to ask question about Folding.

[RollTime]

It's basically mining if you turn it all the way up. It will tank your performance.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

2 hours ago, RollTime said:

It's basically mining if you turn it all the way up. It will tank your performance.

I had a feeling that would be the case. Since it's for a good cause, I might as well try it out and see what comes of it.

[Egg-Roll]

2 hours ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

I had a feeling that would be the case. Since it's for a good cause, I might as well try it out and see what comes of it.

What ever you do don't permit your CPU to do work or limit it's process to half cores.

[RollTime]

3 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

What ever you do don't permit your CPU to do work or limit it's process to half cores.

Why not?

[Egg-Roll]

13 minutes ago, RollTime said:

Why not?

First I found out (and it's been mentioned not just on here but elsewhere on the web) CPU folding actually can decrease your GPU folding bringing down your score. Second it can make your PC becomes absolute trash to use...

[Metallus97]

On 10/15/2018 at 8:49 PM, Egg-Roll said:

First I found out (and it's been mentioned not just on here but elsewhere on the web) CPU folding actually can decrease your GPU folding bringing down your score. Second it can make your PC becomes absolute trash to use...

It largely depends on your CPU. For example I am running a i5 4670K in my daily driver. I have two AMD R9 290x folding full blast since I don't need them for work and surfing. Desktop graphics are no problem at all with them on full power.

In FAH you can set up the CPU to only use x Cores. I have it set to use 2 Cores. This leads one free for the GPU folders. They also ned some CPU power. Especially on Nvidia GPUs you should leave at least one Core per GPU out of your CPU folding. Wit my setup 2xRadeon is fine on one core.

This leaves me one core to "work with". Alls I have set the priority of the FAH workers to "lower than normal"

To summarize: 2x Full blast FAH but with "lower than normal" priority. 1x For the GPUs. 1x for me

 

In daily usage I don't notice a perf. difference. I might have to add: the i5 is running @4,8GHz under Water

[aeadespeacock]

On 10/15/2018 at 2:55 PM, Dissitesuxba11s said:

With the LTT Folding month creeping on us, along with Halloween, I'm interested in joining the team but I do have a few questions.

 

Folders that use their daily drivers for folding, do you only fold when you are not using your PC and turn off the folding software when you are using your PC? If you have it 24/7, is there any significant performance impact when folding and regular day to day media consumption?

 

Is folding comparable to mining when it comes to power consumption, heat production and hardware degradation? I am asking these questions because even though this will be for a good cause, I don't want to suddenly receive a big electricity bill and come home to a furnace.

 

Any input is appreciated.

I'm very sorry but although I can't answer your other questions I can say that you do not have to keep starting up the program and shutting it down as you can set the client to only allow folding@home to run at idle.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

Just now, aeadespeacock said:

I'm very sorry but although I can't answer your other questions I can say that you do not have to keep starting up the program and shutting it down as you can set the client to only allow folding@home to run at idle.

Already figured it out friend, but thanks for the input.

[aeadespeacock]

Just now, Dissitesuxba11s said:

Already figured it out friend, but thanks for the input.

Yearh thought you would tbh.

[aeadespeacock]

5 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

Already figured it out friend, but thanks for the input.

If you don't mind I am going to post a screenshot to show others anyway.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

2 minutes ago, aeadespeacock said:

If you don't mind I am going to post a screen shoot to show others anyway.

Sure, but maybe make it as a separate post and word it like a tutorial or something.

[Gorgon]

Back to the original topic ...

 

Your GPU will only need one thread on a modern processor under Windows to keep the GPU fed. It is best if you are going to CPU fold to also leave one thread for the system or unexpected things can happen. If you only have one GPU this normally is not a problem as the FAHclient will only use and even number of threads.

 

I still set the number of threads manually rather that leaving it at the default (-1, or use all available)

 

I run folding 24x7 on the GTX 1060 6B that is now in my Daily Driver and have the CPU folding set to use 6/8 threads. My CPU (Xeon e3-1231v3) utilization sits around 92-95% but I do not notice any appreciable performance degradation and usually have open:

 

8 PuTTY windows

8-20 Tabs in FireFox

The FAHControl App

MSI Afterburner

Z-GPU

3 or 4 Text Files

HFM.net

 

I have had no problem opening large Excel Files (Stats) or Opening Lightroom and editing Photos.

 

The truth is that most productivity applications consume very few resources and those that do will just be slower.

 

Of course, gaming is another story.

 

My GPU in this system runs at about 93-95% utilization and sits at 65-70C with the fan running at 70%. a 130W Power Limit and a +75/+800MHz GPU/Memory overclock in a Fractal Design Node 804 case.

 

Cheers,

 

Bruce

 

But why am I telling this - you are kicking my Ass point-wise

[Dissitesuxba11s]

6 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

Your GPU will only need one thread on a modern processor under Windows to keep the GPU fed. It is best if you are going to CPU fold to also leave one thread for the system or unexpected things can happen. If you only have one GPU this normally is not a problem as the FAHclient will only use and even number of threads.

 

I still set the number of threads manually rather that leaving it at the default (-1, or use all available)

 

I run folding 24x7 on the GTX 1060 6B that is now in my Daily Driver and have the CPU folding set to use 6/8 threads.

On my main system in a Corsair 760T,  I have a R7 1700 set to fold on only 8 cores with it sitting between 60-70% utilization when I'm just browsing the interwebs. I'm not really much of a gamer nowadays so that is not an issue. This same system originally has a GTX 980 that shares a custom waterloop with the CPU and they bought sit around 48-55C depending on the day with the radiator fans spinning at 1000RPM (non PWM fans controlled by a case fan controller). I've also have EVGA 1080TI FTW3 in the the same system which sits mid-60C. It probably could be cooler but due to the fact that it is sandwiched between the PSU and the 980, I think that temp is about right. I didn't bother OC-ing it since this system is also in my room; I can deal with the heat by opening my window but the noise would be another story. Both GPUs are pegged at 95% compute utilization and luckily the performance of the 980 has not been impacted even though it's still running a 3440x1400 X-34 monitor.

 

19 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

But why am I telling this - you are kicking my Ass point-wise

I'm sure with that 2070 you are going to catch up soon. We still got the rest of November   

[Gorgon]

4 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

I'm sure with that 2070 you are going to catch up soon. We still got the rest of November   

Yeah, I might if I stop trying to get past a +125 o/c and failing WUs! Had to take the system off-line last night to move the Kill-a-Watt to it and get some Power Draw measurements at the wall (250W) so I decided to bump up to a +200 - Crashed on start so I dialed it down to +150, that started running so I went back to the TV and when I checked 1/2 hour later than 9 failed WUs.

 

I'm just going to wait until next month then profile the card to see what it can do. I'll have to keep an eye on the CPU and PCIe utilization as it's being fed by an Athlon II dual-core at 2.9GHx on a PCIe2x16

[Dissitesuxba11s]

6 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

Yeah, I might if I stop trying to get past a +125 o/c and failing WUs! Had to take the system off-line last night to move the Kill-a-Watt to it and get some Power Draw measurements at the wall (250W) so I decided to bump up to a +200 - Crashed on start so I dialed it down to +150, that started running so I went back to the TV and when I checked 1/2 hour later than 9 failed WUs.

 

I'm just going to wait until next month then profile the card to see what it can do. I'll have to keep an eye on the CPU and PCIe utilization as it's being fed by an Athlon II dual-core at 2.9GHx on a PCIe2x16

You don't want to switch out the 1060 with the 2070 and maybe just run it at the stock OC profile?

[Mihle]

Personally I don't notice anything when running it while I watch YouTube video for example or browsing the web, but I turn it off while for example gaming ofc or other stuff that needs power.

 

HW monitor says it is just using 90% of the CPU cores  and GPU even if I dragged the slider to max.

 

I have 3570k at 4 GHz and RX 580 and are folding on both

[Spotty]

10 minutes ago, Mihle said:

HW monitor says it is just using 90% of the CPU cores  and GPU even if I dragged the slider to max.

Sounds normal. I sit at about 93-94% GPU Compute usage. If you hit the down arrow above the graph in Task Manager you can change what the graphs display. Set one of them to Compute and you'll be able to see what it's using in Task Manager.

 

[HarrisonCassidy]

Question: it says my cpu is in the high 80% being used but my gpu (Radeon RX 580) is not being touched, is there a reason for this or a setting I can change?

[Dissitesuxba11s]

37 minutes ago, HarrisonCassidy said:

Question: it says my cpu is in the high 80% being used but my gpu (Radeon RX 580) is not being touched, is there a reason for this or a setting I can change?

What does the folding page look like? (Maybe provide a screenshot?) You might just have the CPU folding while the GPU is not.

[HarrisonCassidy]

https://gyazo.com/8a0c2e3afb1b95ec5e73306fa1f44ebe
https://gyazo.com/0c1df4444b639b67118839eefa4fd242

[Gorgon]

5 minutes ago, HarrisonCassidy said:

https://gyazo.com/8a0c2e3afb1b95ec5e73306fa1f44ebe
https://gyazo.com/0c1df4444b639b67118839eefa4fd242

Your folding on both the GPU and CPU. As mentioned above in Windows task manager you have to switch the GPU load view to "Compute"

[Dissitesuxba11s]

8 minutes ago, HarrisonCassidy said:

https://gyazo.com/8a0c2e3afb1b95ec5e73306fa1f44ebe
https://gyazo.com/0c1df4444b639b67118839eefa4fd242

Based on your PPD, ~400k, and on the second slot it says that the GPU is running everything looks like it is working. If you are worried about why Task Manager is only showing 5% utilization, go to the Performance tab, click the GPU, then change one of the graphs to Compute_0. It should show something like this:

  

[HarrisonCassidy]

Thank you!